In a typical last mile connectivity system upload/download ratios are grossly asymmetrical. Most of the content users acquire or generate is downloaded and not generated locally. In a typical scenario in which a user attempts to store content to a central location, data which has just been downloaded would be uploaded again. Considering the asymmetrical bandwidth ratios this is highly impractical. The asymmetry in the upload versus download bandwidth is evidence to such difference. In systems that are intensive on the download side, it would be advantageous to further provide a network storage system that takes advantage of this asymmetry and harness it to its advantage.
One of the challenges of today has further to do with the sharing of secure data. Such data is difficult to share between two or more users because of the need to ensure that the data is protected from those entities which are not authorized to view such data. While exchange and/or sharing is known in the art to be enabled on particular cases, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,941 incorporated herein merely for the useful understanding of the background of the invention, it requires the creation of a “network vault” for the exchange of secured data. Other solutions require the creation of protected channels for the exchange of such secure shared data. Of particular difficulty is the use of content addressable storage (CAS) when operating on secure data. Existing art explains how to access encrypted data in regularly accessed storage systems, but does not provide an acceptable method for using CAS in conjunction with encrypted data in situations where different users may use different encryption keys.
It would be therefore advantageous to provide a solution that enables the sharing of data in general and the sharing of secured data in particular.